Green mountain,
I call you sugar, snow and maple…
Dripping poetry and prose from frosted lips, sap and syrupy.
A painting signed by God…
Van Gogh or Monet, Cole or Homer.
Eastern red-cedar, hemlock and birch, tamarack, spruce, black willow and pine, reign silently over steep sprawling hills of moss covered rock and white powder.
The black ash lying half in the stream,
And we’re driving in a time machine.
1971…
Deep in the glen.
Chasing the gushing river for a stretch, until it vanishes beneath our feet, off into obscurity, quietly hiding, like a playful child, only to surprise, scurrying to greet us unfailingly and evermore.
Then east, then west again…
Now side by side.
Cascading endlessly…
Always the same, always changing.
Never vapid, forever unfolding, alluring.
Dressed sparsely by the flesh-worn and callused hands of liberty. Broad ax, forge iron, shears, snips and button hooks.
The palette of the American sculptor.
Ancient pilgrims and pioneers,
plebeians and peasants.
The spirit of liberation…
Passion, voyage,
Rebellious runaway.
The for-fathers of the for-fathers.
The first white men…
The first white women.
I drift further still, staring deep into the dark wood, venerable rock, the mystic peaks covered in fresh powder.
Eons hence…
Back to the first red men…
The first red women.
I can see the camp, scattered tee-pees, smoke rising.
The Algonquian women slouched and bent, wading knee high, gathering water for the tribe.
The white man still an ocean away.
The Abnaki men, clandestine and silent, spot a deer along the precipice, Patiently, with arrow and bow, wait beyond the brush.
Their painted faces, long dark hair, and beaver pelts tell fabled stories of rich beginnings. The providing earth.
And when the fatal strike for sustenance is complete, it’s greeted with a triumphant scream of joyous ecstasy that echoes throughout these hills. A primitive cry to ancient gods and goddesses; the sun, the moon, and the countless stars that fall away to morning.
A primordial celebration of vitality.
The indigenous, monolithic, human spirit.